Economic development touted

Need some business help? Think about calling on some experts at your local university.

''You can't get consulting any better or any cheaper than you can at one of our institutions,'' said Tom Meredith, the new chancellor of the University System of Georgia.

Meredith was in Athens Tuesday on a statewide ''Knowledge is Power'' tour, designed to introduce him to business leaders from around the state and to publicize the university system's role in economic development.

A Tuesday luncheon at the University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education was sponsored by the Intellectual Capital Partnership Program (ICAPP), created by the university system several years ago to train Georgia workers for high-tech jobs.

Georgia's 34 public colleges and universities have about an $8 billion annual economic impact on the state, and generate more than 100,000 jobs -- about 3 percent of all the jobs in the state -- according a study by UGA's Selig Center for Economic Growth.

Meredith wants the university system to take a bigger role in economic development, and people in the university system are working on a number of ways to accomplish that. Next fall, the university system will announce a systemwide competition pertaining to entrepreneurship, rewarding efforts that create new jobs and partner with private-sector business, Meredith said.

Prominently featured in Tuesday's meeting were area business people who gave testimonials about how consultants and programs in the university system had helped their businesses.

Naseem Hameed of Atlanta-based Trans-Atlantic Associates told how the company was helped by the public service and outreach office of UGA's biological and agricultural engineering department.

Two years ago, UGA contacted the company about state efforts to reduce the flow of material into landfills. The company, which recycles industrial waste such as plastic, wood and carpet, opened an office in Atlanta after the UGA consultants helped them identify companies in Georgia where they could get materials, and the company shipped nearly 3 million pounds last year, she said.

The materials are shipped to countries in the Caribbean and elsewhere, where they are used to make furniture, plastic trays and other objects.

Tony Bilello of Oglethorpe County's Macon Electric Coil said a Georgia Tech outreach program -- which has an office in Athens -- had helped his company meet foreign competition after it lost its biggest contract to a competitor outside the United States.

Three years later, profit margins are way up and employee turnover is no longer a problem, partly because employees are making substantially more money. Bilello gives much of the credit to the help the company got from Georgia Tech's consultants.

And John Smeaton, CEO of an Australian company named BresaGen, explained why the company chose Athens over California, Colorado and other locations when it decided it was time to establish a U.S. subsidiary.

The company grows stem cells, and is working on medical applications involving the nervous system, he said.

''We want to cure Parkinson's disease and do something about spinal cord injuries,'' he said.

The company chose Athens partly because it is now the home of Steve Stice, a UGA cloning expert who is doing research for BresaGen. But it was also the help of UGA, which has provided lab and office space for the company in a new high-tech building on the UGA campus, he said.

''The University of Georgia does believe in working with business, and they put their money where their mouth is,'' he said.